Passage
Passage is a psychological-horror film released in 1999 and directed by Owen Emerson and Pen Densham. It was produced by Copperhead Communications (a joint venture between Laney/Novice Productions, Gecko Entertainment LLC, Largo Entertainment, The Kushner-Locke Company and Trilogy Entertainment Group) with sales, backing and distribution by Capitol Films/Winchester Films, Largo Entertainment and The Kushner-Locke Company. Dimension Films bookended distribution in the states with Bob and Harvey Weinstein serving as executive producers. The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom, given that a majority of the funding came from that country’s producers. Domestically, it had a very limited theatrical run in the Midwest and was mostly aired on television and released on DVD in 2001. Plot Sean Connelly is an amnesiac boy who's in a relationship with Bri Mott. Their relationship comes to an end after Bri discovers her mother, Lillith was killed and that Sean was the last person she talked to. Previously, she developed a pedophiliac interest in him after watching the two have sex and saw it as catharsis from her own troubled marriage. This is never brought to the attention of the court due to Mott being part of the town board, and hence being granted diplomatic immunity. Thanks to an alibi in the form of him having been with Bri at the time, Sean isn't convicted, but Bri's father Chester bans him from seeing her for safety reasons. Sean relocates to a remote cabin in order to contemplate what he'll do in the future. He is harassed by a supposed former classmate, Keller, over the death of Lillith, claiming that he laid the seeds for her demise. Sean rebuffs him, leading to a brief physical altercation. The next day, Sean gets a job as a grocer. He sees Bri with a new boyfriend, Cliff, who accuses him of attempting to murder both a previous night. When Sean claims he has no memory of doing it, it leads to a fight and Sean getting fired. Upon getting home, Sean discovers that his pet dog was killed and mounted atop of his door. Keller seemingly stoped by while Sean was gone. He calls the police and is put in touch with Detective Goddard. Remembering that he saw a truck pass by the house when Sean first encountered Keller, he brings the driver up in the hopes of getting a credible witness, and upon doing so is told to meet both at the local diner to discuss the encounter. Sean oversleeps and misses the appointment. Reaching the diner he learns that the detective never showed up. Sean discovers the bodies of the witness and the detective in the trunk of his car. He promptly pushes it into the water to hide the evidence. After getting home, Sean gets a phone call from Bri who tells him that her house was burned down and that he's being blamed for it. He claims he has no recollection of being anywhere near the property since he was banned from there. Bri tells him that Chester has filed for a restraining order and that he is no longer permitted to be anywhere near them. He seeks solace with his friends Wally and Gerald, who invite him over to their house, but it turns out to be a kangaroo court where Sean is now accused of killing Lee, one of his friends. Sean blacks out and he sees the morning paper by his door after waking up. The front page was torn out. Sean watches the news and discovers that Chester died, Sean once again being pinned as a witness since he was in the area. Sean begins to have a mental breakdown and talks to visions of himself who tell him to give himself up to the police for the sake of everyone's safety. Repressed memories of Sean threatening Bri and Cliff with a gun, assaulting and killing Lee after she jokingly steals his wallet as well as killing Lillith, his dog, Chester, the detective and the witness come forward. He also learns that Keller is merely a figment of his imagination, done due to an unidentified case of dissociative identity disorder and is an amalgamation of his anger, denial and regret. Sean realizes that Keller came about over his lust for Bri. The next day, Bri arrives to try and get Sean to give himself up to the police, which lead to him raping her after she declines offers to return to him. Cliff gets killed when he tries to break up the fight and Bri dies after failing down the stairs. Coming back to reality, Sean kills himself out of regret, wearing himself thin. A year passes. Sean's estranged father Jake takes Lillith's place in the town council. The sheriff visits him, tying him to psychological abuse against his son and conspiracy charges, but is unable to arrest him due to a lack of evidence. Jake rebuffs him by claiming that going deeper into the case will be fatal. Cast * Jason James Richter: Sean * Nicholle Tom: Bri * James Spader: Keller * Lily Tomlin: Lillith * John de Lancie: Chester *Danny Masterson: Cliff * Wallace Langham: Clerk * Stuart Charno: Manager * Susan Dey: Waitress * Jeffrey Donovan: Sheriff Downey * Jim Varney: Jake * Valente Rodriguez: Chico * Jeff Conaway: Detective Goddard * Frank Whaley: Lawyer * Nick LaTour: Judge * Seth Green: Buzz * Rob McElhenney: Gerald * Allison Mack: Lee Production Production began in 1995. Emerson sought to create a thriller set in a universe of his own creation, using an array of new actors and classic film stars. Emerson turned to Winchester Films to help back the film, but they were unable to fulfill his funding demands. After a joint deal with Capitol Films failed to make an impact, they encouraged him to make a deal with an American distributor. Emerson went to Paramount Pictures with his idea, but was rebuffed by his ludicrous demands. As a result, he went to Miramax and his project was greenlit. Miramax wanted to alter Emerson's film after learning that if it failed at the box office it'd be a major money sink for those involved given his budget demands. They were also unsatisfied with the material he had written already given his lack of experience with the thriller genre. As a result, they brought on producer Donald Kushner to talk him into producing a much simpler film, but neither could cooperate. Emerson decided to hire Family Trip writer Elliot Strange to help produce the film, and he too was opposed to the way Emerson wanted to write the film. As a result, Strange hired Lilly Laney, Frank Novice, and they brought on Peter Locke, Pen Densham and John Watson to help fix the script, given their experience with the thriller genre and the fact that Laney, Novice and Strange collaborated with them before and used them for the sake of simplified communication. At this point, Emerson was talked into lowering his budget demands and settled for a five million dollar budget and Miramax had the film moved to its Dimension Films label. Emerson reacted viciously to rebuffs on his ideas and he also refused to work with actors the producers chose to work on the film. There's also a rumor that Emerson physically assaulted Harvey Weinstein, leading to him nearly abandoning the project. As a result of Emerson's near-tyrnicall approach at managing the film, leading to the film being put in development hell, Strange decided to shoot the film in another location in secret. Since their funding came from numerous equity firms, the lack of a film would've resulted in a bank fraud charge and all that were involved may be blacklisted by Hollywood, if not no longer trusted to work on any future productions, so they had to come up with something that would break even at the box office. To do this, Strange told Emerson that the film was cancelled to prevent him from questioning the producers on what they intended to do. Strange, Laney, Novice, Kushner, Locke, Densham, Watson and the Weinstein brothers traveled to Vancouver to shoot the film. Certain scenes had to be reshot since so many of them were filmed in Fairmount and most of the cast wanted to leave the project, having been worn out thanks to Emerson. As a result, the script had to be revised and simplified and most of the budget was put toward personal expenses for the cast to keep them aboard. The producers also formed a shell-label and opted to not have their names credited on the film unless it broke even at the box office. Filming concluded near the end of 1998. Trailers were released a month prior when the staff had a substantial amount of footage to work into one. The film was released in 1999, and Emerson didn't realize it until he saw the trailer for it while at a bar. He futilely tried to sue the producers for releasing his project without his knowledge, but was brought down by his treatment of them and the actors in the film. Both parties were granted an undisclosed settlement. Emerson filed for an Alan Smithee credit after the producers left his name in, and it was given. It’s rumored that Strange’s persistence against Emerson was done to get revenge on him after he produced an adaptation of one of his books and not only altered aspects to push a message but only gave him less than a quarter of the profit. Strange admits it has some credence, but a majority of what happened would’ve regardless of the intent behind it. Reception The film received mixed reviews from critics, earning a 49% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being "An interesting premise, marred by lackluster execution, leaving no reason for another look." In spite of its poor reviews, thanks to the film's low budget, it was able to recoup its losses during its theatrical run. Aftermath In 2017, Chris Stuckman did a review of the film, where he addressed the production issues. Due to poor wording and pinning the blame on the producers, people went after Elliot Strange via social media. Elliot Strange responded by challenging Emerson to explain their side on what happened during the production of the film. A poll was hosted on Strange's website and both did videos explaining what happened. Out of 463 votes, Strange received the highest amount.